There comes a point where normal computing just isn’t good enough. Be it facial recognition, tracking a person’s habits, answering questions concerning thousands of documents, or understanding common language commands, eventually a business will need the power of artificial intelligence. These Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems will be core to business needs in the future, and right now, Facebook is one of the major players in that space. To accelerate the pace of AI use, the social media giant has announced Big Sur, a hardware platform for AI systems.

To get an inside look at this new AI platform, Jeff Frick and Stu Miniman, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, talked with Kevin Lee, technical program manager at Facebook, during the OCP U.S. Summit 2016 conference.

Putting the pieces together

Big Sur is a rack-mounted machine designed for AI systems at scale. It features the power of eight GPUs and boasts a high-reliability and ease-of-maintenance factor. The system also meets Open Compute standards. The conversation about Big Sur started with applications. Lee stated the system was originally built for specific jobs, including facial recognition and advertising. Vendors, he said, didn’t have the hardware required to meet Facebook’s needs, so it built its own.

It feels great, Lee said, to share this technology with the world. Now, people will have access to a system purposefully built for AI. Because of all the AI applications out there, Big Sur was made to be flexible and dynamic.

Giving back to the community

Lee pointed out how contributing hardware is a big leap for open source. The intent of Big Sur isn’t just to throw something out there and demand the community use it. Rather, Facebook expects the open-source community to customize and evolve the system to fit their needs.

As for the future, Lee said that Facebook’s mission is to connect the next billion people. AI fits into this philosophy because much of the work done by AI revolves around better understanding the world. With the many different applications for AI right now, the future of the field stands to be very interesting.

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of OCP U.S. Summit 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE